Participants:

(1)     Mike Shaw – Mike is a family man and part-time poker player currently playing on Black Belt Poker as part of the 2010 Grading. Mike is predominantly a cash player, but also plays MTTs.
(2)     Joe Roberts – Joe is a 21-year old student with an unfortunate liking for Bristol City football club. Like Mike, Joe is a member of the Dublin Two-O and is also playing No Limit Hold’em cash games.

Part One: Joe’s Hand:

History: The game is full-ring No Limit Hold’em with stakes of $0.25/0.50. Villain in this incident is fellow Grader and Green Belt Mike ‘Belterman’ Carroll. Mike is running at 27/16 over 92 hands and Joe has noted that he ‘check-called a river with top par top kicker in a spot he maybe should have bet for value’.

The Hand:

Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: JanMilo87 [$59.27 USD]
Seat 3: ELVENDAS [$11.00 USD]
Seat 5: pANIK5 [$60.85 USD]
Seat 6: BelterMan (Villain) [$59.96 USD]
Seat 8: JustinBieber [Hero] [$50.00 USD]
Seat 10: Sickleag [$51.50 USD]
ELVENDAS posts small blind [$0.25 USD].
pANIK5 posts big blind [$0.50 USD].

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to JustinBieber [ Jd-Jh ]

BelterMan raises to [$1.50 USD]
JustinBieber reraises to [$5.00 USD]
Sickleag folds
JanMilo87 folds
ELVENDAS folds
pANIK5 folds
BelterMan calls [$3.50 USD]

** Dealing Flop ** [ Js-Ac-As ]
BelterMan bets [$5.50 USD]
JustinBieber calls [$5.50 USD]

** Dealing Turn ** [ Qs ]
BelterMan bets [$14.00 USD]
JustinBieber calls [$14.00 USD]

** Dealing River ** [ 6h ]
BelterMan bets [$35.46 USD]

Mike’s Analysis:

Preflop: Preflop, PokerStove gives us 62 percent equity against his ‘raw’ range, but we also need to take into account that he is raising under the gun, so is also likely to be playing at the upper end of his raising range. If we assume he will raise on top 10 percent under the gun, then we are 56 percent against this range. We're also not going to get overly excited with J-J preflop.

I don't mind the reraise in this case, but if we assume he is a thinking player, he's probably only going to call with something like 9-9+ or A-Ko+/A-Js+ and you can expect to be facing a reraise if he's holding A-A or K-K, maybe A-Ks/A-Qs depending on how aggressive he plays.

I'm not sure I like the amount of the raise as we're giving him about 2.5:1 to call, so he's not making a mistake by calling with any of his ‘raw’ range. My play would be to either take the passive line and flat call, hoping to see a favourable flop, or be more aggressive and raise the pot. J-J is actually my least favourite hand so I would personally lean towards flatting him here

Flop: The flop brings us huge tidings of joy. Any of Villain's A-x hands are huge underdogs and it is reasonable to think A-A or A-J are less likely holdings than the rest of his range - we obviously don't even have to care about the suits either. PokerStove gives us 86 percent against his likely range on this flop.

The villain bets out half the pot, which would be a value bet with any of his A-x hands and he might be thinking he is ahead with K-K or Q-Q. It is likely he will call or reraise with the majority of his range, although would probably fold his worse pairs. On this basis, I would say raising is still likely to be the best line here as we really want to give him the opportunity to reraise us.

Turn: OK, so what does his bet of three quarters the pot mean? Is it a ‘standard’ value bet? This is where notes on an opponent’s bet sizing tendencies can come in very handy. A-Q and Q-Q are now beating us in addition to the less likely A-A and A-J. We are ahead of A-K, K-K, T-T or 9-9, plus any of his less likely air hands. Would T-T or worse have bet on the flop and turn with this board? I suppose a flush could think they would be ahead of us now, but it seems fairly unlikely that he will have two random flush cards.

I think he would be pretty brave to bet out with T-T or less, so I am giving this less weight now. I also thought he would probably reraise us preflop with A-A or K-K so we could reasonably surmise that his most likely holdings are Q-Q or A-Q/A-K (suited or not). We don't have enough information to decide which out of these would be more likely, so a call here is reasonable.

River: The river changes nothing, so when the villain moves all in you are getting 3:1 on your call. The most likely hands are still A-Q, Q-Q or A-K but we also still don't have enough information to decide which would be more likely out of these possibilities, so a call here is reasonable given the odds being offered.

Joe’s Analysis:

Preflop: When a tight player opens under the gun I’m not really looking to three-bet him light without reason from middle position. We can assume he’s opening a strong range here - I would guess something like all pairs, A-T+ and K-Q. J-J is obviously ahead of this range, and I think that if we get flat called we will often be ahead and see a flop in position and with the initiative in the hand. If we get four-bet I feel we are likely facing a premium hand such as Q-Q+ or AK-, but a lot of players with similar numbers flat A-K in this spot, and I believe I saw him flat A-K preflop earlier in the session.

While we can be called by better, I believe he can still call with hands like 9-9, A-K and A-Q. Thus, my raise is for value, to take the initiative in the hand and also in the process gain information as to his hand strength. I would normally raise to $5 or $5.50 in this spot in position, as with this size I feel he will still call with worse, but might fold all but his premium hands if we raise significantly larger.

Flop: On the flop, I’m just trying to work out the best way of getting all the money in. His donk bet is very strange: it’s possible he could be leading here with A-K for value, but I feel a more common line is for people to check to the raiser, particularly in a three-bet pot, hoping to induce a continuation bet. I decide that flat calling gives him the opportunity to ‘spaz out’ again on the turn with hands that might fold if I raise, and that if he has an ace I’ll probably be getting most of his money anyway, so I’m not losing too much value by not raising.

If I raise I can give him the chance to ship it in with a hand like K-Qs, or something else that might not fire again, but I feel that this is such a small part of his range that there is more value in flat calling and giving him the chance to do something like turn hands like K-K or Q-Q into a bluff on the turn.

Turn: This is one of the worst turn cards as we are now losing to A-Q and Q-Q, although we are still ahead of K-K and A-K and any bluffs in his range. He bets $14 into $21 giving us 2.5:1 on a call. However, if we call here we will be committed to calling a river shove, as the pot will be $50 and we will only have $25 back. I think calling here is the best option: against a range of Q-Q, A-Js+, A-Jo+ and one combination of K-K (to account for the small chance of a random bluff) we have 40 percent equity. Raising gives him the chance to fold his A-K, and means that he might still ship on the river with worse, as our passive line may be perceived as weakness.

I briefly entertained folding, as I was unsure how often an under-the-gun raiser would fire two bullets at this board in a three-bet pot with worse than us. However, I decided that A-K was still very much in his range, and that this meant we had sufficient equity to continue. Plus, who folds a full house?

River: I think a lot of the time when a solid player takes this line he’s going to have it, but we took a line that gave him the greatest possible chance of showing up with worse. When you also consider that we’re getting 3:1 on our money and have a full house (which no one likes to fold), I think this is simply a case of shutting our eyes and clicking the call button.

The Reveal:

JustinBieber calls [$25.50 USD]
BelterMan wins $107.71 USD from main pot
BelterMan shows [Qd, Qh]

Mike’s Conclusion:

Poker is one of those games where hindsight is a wonderful thing. Could the result have turned out differently?  I am not sure it would as the key question is whether the villain would fold to a pot reraise on the flop. With his specific hand of Q-Q it is possible he might have, but it is by no means certain. Even so, that would still leave A-K and A-Q in his range that he would certainly call (or reraise) with, so looking at the problem from a range perspective does not change the thought process from the turn onwards

If played differently, our hero may have won a small pot on the flop, but the most likely outcome would still be the same result. In my view, Joe just got unlucky and there is justification for the calls made on the turn and river.

Joe’s Conclusion:

I selected this hand partly because it titled me during and after I played it, but also because it reminded me of the Zeebo Theorem and how people don’t like folding full houses. Even thought I wasn’t sure I was ahead of his range on the turn/river, I’m pretty sure I fell into that bracket and had to make the call.

Read Part Two...

If you would like to comment on the above hand or ask the Graders a question, then please leave your feedback in the comments box below.

Also see previous 'Hand Exchanges':

Blatchly on Holden - Part One
Holden on Blatchy - Part Two
Hawes on Bland - Part One
Bland on Hawes - Part Two
Yuen on Lundy - Part One
Lundy on Yuen - Part Two